Kyle stared straight ahead.
“Thing is, your reputation has been a bit tarnished of late. Unsuccessful missions. More than one. Now this. I’ve begun to think that perhaps there’s something else going on.”
Clearing his throat, Kyle evenly asked, “And what would that be?”
“You tell me.”
Kyle lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug.
The Dane uncrossed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Now, we both have a problem here. Perhaps we can work together. Help each other.” He waited for a response, but Kyle didn’t give him one. “I think we can come to some sort of arrangement, don’t you?”
“Perhaps.” The only arrangement Kyle would make with this man was the terms of his painful death at Kyle’s hands.
“You obviously haven’t gotten the location out of him yet.”
“Location?”
The Dane huffed impatiently. “The Chimera, of course. Clever of you to try and romance it out of him. Of course if you’d been successful, he’d be disposed of.”
Kyle’s stomach flip-flopped as he ran the Dane’s words over in his mind. “You obviously haven’t gotten the location out of him yet.” Yet. He kept his tone even. “Where is he now?”
“Nearby.”
Pulse racing, Kyle glanced around casually. “I don’t see him.” Was he really alive? Was he hurt? Elation jumbled with worry.
“All in good time.” The Dane’s lips quirked up. “Now, you Americans have a term that I quite like. I believe it’s ‘good cop/bad cop.’ Did I get that right?”
Kyle waited for him to get to the point.
“So my cohorts and I are obviously primed to play the role of the bad cops in this scenario. If our methods don’t yield results, then I thought you could step in. The young man looked quite…pliable when we found you earlier. I think we can help each other convince him to give us the information. Time is of the essence, after all.”
Kyle pretended to consider it. “And if I agree, and he tells us the location. Then what?”
“I’m sure there’s a sum we can agree on. Something that will allow you to make a clean break. Start anew.”
“Why should I trust you?”
The Dane laughed. “Well, you haven’t much choice, have you? I give you my word.”
“The boy?”
“We’ll take care of it.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Unless you’d prefer to?”
“Either way.” Either way I’m going to rip your lungs out. “What if he won’t talk? He’s…surprising.”
“If we can’t get it out of him, we move to plan B. But I think it would be mutually beneficial to give plan A a try. Don’t you agree?”
Adjusting his arms behind him, Kyle nodded.
He was in the tree.
It was just as Sebastian remembered it from that awful day as a child. He was high in the air, almost as if he could reach out and touch the clouds—if he could only open his eyes. The bark of the branch was rough and damp beneath his cheek.
He was on his stomach, one leg somehow bent beneath him painfully. He tried to open his eyes once more, but it was as if they were fused shut. The pain in his body intensified as he tried to move, so he gave up and drifted away.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was in his room in Como. The bed dipped beside him, and Kyle was there, dressed in a tuxedo as he had been the night they met. Smiling, Kyle—Steven?—leaned down and kissed him.
“I shouldn’t.” Sebastian was breathless, excited. “If my father found out…”
But he felt totally safe with Kyle and certain they wouldn’t be discovered. He felt as if he was flying. Yet as he arched into Kyle’s hands, a sharp pain throbbed in Sebastian’s stomach. He was back in the tree and it was cold and damp, and then he was falling—
“Up!”
Sebastian blinked at the hulk of a man glowering over him. The man bared his teeth. “About time. Need you conscious, don’t we?”
He was on a concrete floor, hard and gritty. All Sebastian could see was dank gray. His ribs ached from where he’d just been kicked. His head was a lead weight he could lift only a few centimeters before collapsing back down to the floor.
A hand fisted in his hair, and Sebastian was dragged to a sitting position. The man, sporting a bandage over a fresh wound in his shoulder, tightened his grip and leaned in close, his foul breath invading Sebastian’s senses. This time the man spoke in broken Italian. “I’m gonna enjoy making you scream, faggot.”
Sebastian’s mind felt like pieces of a puzzle scattered across the room. He’d been with Kyle—Oh God, Kyle! Wincing, Sebastian looked for him in the dark room, but he was alone with his captor. Gazing at the man, he had a flash of memory—firing a gun. The field. Target practice.
Kyle had suddenly staggered against him and gone limp. Had told him to run, and then… The gun had been in Sebastian’s hand, and he fired at the men charging toward them. Then blackness and concrete. “Where is he?” Sebastian’s throat was like sandpaper. Please let him be all right. Please.
The man sneered. “You’ll be reunited soon, don’t worry.”
Sebastian struggled to make sense of it all. “Who are you? What do you want?”
His captor’s laugh echoed off the dank walls. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Do you work for my father?”
Someone approached, and the metal door groaned on its hinges. Another man appeared. “He’s ready.”
They hauled Sebastian to his feet, dragging him by one arm. Sebastian struggled futilely for a few moments before accepting it was useless. He was badly outmatched. As they shoved him into another large room in the old warehouse or wherever the hell they were, Sebastian’s heart leaped at the sight of Kyle bound to a chair.
For a split second, their eyes met, and Kyle gazed at him with an intent expression of relief and concern and something Sebastian didn’t dare name. Then Kyle blinked, and it was gone, a look of boredom taking its place.
The men dumped Sebastian on his knees, which cracked painfully on the floor. A blond man in a suit approached slowly, hands clasped behind him. “Well, hello, Mr. Brambani. I must say you are…unexpected.” He addressed Kyle. “Shot one of my men as we came to collect you. Had to put a dart in him too.”
Kyle’s blank expression was unchanging.
“Now, Mr. Brambani, tell us where the Chimera is.”
Sebastian blinked, surprised. “I don’t know.”
The man chuckled. “Of course you do. That is why Mr. Grant went after you. Why you’re still alive.” He stepped closer. “You know where the powder is, or you’d be in your grave. Mr. Grant doesn’t bring along toys on his missions.”
“I have no idea where it is.” All Sebastian could do was tell the truth.
His interrogator adjusted his jeweled cuff links and went on as if Sebastian hadn’t spoken. “Not that you are without charms, of course.” He ran a fingertip down Sebastian’s cheek, and Sebastian squirmed away. “Boy or girl, with a mouth like that, who cares? Of course you prefer him the way he is, Mr. Grant. So sorry to have interrupted you earlier, but time marches on.”
Kyle stared at the man, face still utterly blank.
The man clapped his hands together sharply. On cue, one of the three other men tugged over a large hook hanging from the ceiling on a rail. Sebastian realized with a sinking sensation that the dark stains on the floor and walls were blood. The meat hook dangled above him, creaking as it swayed. The man he’d shot bound Sebastian’s wrists in front of him with rope and tore the T-shirt from his body.
Sebastian’s heart thumped as he was hung from his wrists on the hook, the toes of his sneakers barely skimming the floor. The rough rope dug into his wrists, his arms protesting as he wiggled, trying to take some more weight on his feet. “I don’t know where it is. I swear, I don’t!”
Grinning, the man he shot held up a taser gun and reached toward him. Before Sebastian could say anything else, a spark of pain in
his side ignited and screamed through his body as he shook helplessly, every nerve on fire. It stopped as suddenly as it began, and he hung limply from his wrists.
The leader brushed his thumb over Sebastian’s lower lip. “Now tell me where it is.”
With the man in front of him, Sebastian couldn’t see Kyle, and he found himself murmuring his name.
The leader smiled. “You’re wondering why we don’t simply ask Mr. Grant? Well, we did, of course, but the fact of the matter is we could torture him from now until Christmas and he wouldn’t tell us the time. You, on the other hand…”
Sebastian screamed as another jolt of electricity seared his body. It was a pain so intense he thought his heart would explode. Gasping, he dangled, sure his arms would tear from their sockets.
“Tell me where it is, and it will all be over.”
“I don’t fucking know.” Sebastian gritted out every word, anger surging in his gut. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
The smile vanished from the blond man’s face. Grabbing the taser, he jammed it into Sebastian’s stomach and another scream tore from Sebastian’s throat, blood flooding his mouth as he bit his tongue. He shuddered in agony.
Through it all, Kyle wore the same bored expression. Sebastian wanted to shout at him to do something, but he could only whimper pitifully. Did Kyle really not care at all? Had Sebastian imagined the connection between them? The fleeting moments of tenderness? Affection, even? The way Kyle had kissed him earlier, Sebastian had felt as though the wall around Kyle was crumbling…
Suddenly he fell, cut down from the hook. He groaned as he hit the concrete, his limbs jelly. Metal scraped over the floor, and a tub of water a few feet deep appeared before him. His wrists were freed, but before he could even rub them, he was swallowing water, choking as powerful hands thrust him over the side of the basin.
Thrashing, he fought to free himself, the panic taking hold as his lungs burned, his head completely underwater. No no no! His mind screamed, and he clawed at the hands holding him down.
Then he was yanked back, and he gasped for air, hyperventilating.
His captor crouched on the other side of the tub. “Where is it? Just tell me and this will all be over.”
Sebastian tried frantically to think of a lie. Anything they might believe. The cabin, perhaps? Anything to make them stop. But before he could get the words past his lips he was under again. He kicked at the air behind him, scrabbling at the man holding him down, digging in his fingernails. Lungs burning, he saw stars as his vision went dark around the edges, the blackness creeping in and taking over. Screaming, he swallowed water—
With a jolt, he was back on his knees, gasping and coughing, his chest on fire. “Wait,” he croaked. “I’ll tell you.”
He looked at Kyle, who did the strangest thing. He smiled. Then Kyle was somehow moving, one arm free as he burst forward onto the crouching blond, chair and all.
Sound and movement exploded all around, and Sebastian was kicked to the floor, his head smacking the hard surface. He fought to stay conscious as his vision went double. There was the sound of splintering wood, interspersed with grunts and moans, and then gunshots that blared in Sebastian’s eardrums.
His eyelids were fifty-ton weights he couldn’t lift. Somewhere nearby, men grappled with each other, flesh striking flesh. Another shot rang out, and all was still. Someone moved toward him, and Sebastian inched away on his stomach, willing life into his useless limbs.
He tensed and tried to kick as strong hands touched him, one on his back, the other lifting his head. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
At the sound of Kyle’s voice, Sebastian slumped to the floor, exhaling. He tried to answer but could only moan. He was somehow moving through the air, and then he was safe in Kyle’s arms, pressed against his warm, powerful body. “I’ve got you,” Kyle repeated, his lips brushing Sebastian’s forehead.
Chapter Ten
As Kyle scrolled through the Dane’s cell phone contacts, Sebastian murmured in his sleep beside him on the bed. Kyle reached over and brushed Sebastian’s hair off his face before grazing his throat. His pulse was strong and steady beneath Kyle’s fingertips.
The narrow face of the manager of the little run-down hotel in the outskirts of Milan had pinched comically as Kyle half carried Sebastian into the lobby. Five hundred euros slid across the counter had done the trick, and the manager hadn’t commented on the bloody and bedraggled state of their clothing.
Kyle leaned back against the headboard, left hand resting in a bucket of ice beside him. He thumbed through the numbers dialed on the cell phone. All had perfectly innocent and generic names such as “Mom” and “Dave” and “Uncle John.” Everything about the Dane and his men had been strikingly familiar, from the make of their weapons to their operating procedures to the codes in their phones.
Now there were four bodies in an old abattoir with Kyle’s fingerprints everywhere. Yet he couldn’t call for a cleaning crew, because the Dane and his men had been sent by the Association. Kyle’s stomach twisted at the thought that it could have been Marie. She’d been his handler for nine years. His friend.
Pushing thoughts of Marie from his mind, Kyle checked his watch: 7:18. Twenty-eight hours and twelve minutes until Arrigo Brambani was scheduled to meet his buyers, location unknown. Of course he could simply follow Sebastian’s father to the rendezvous point, but it was a last resort. Too many uncontrolled variables. He needed to get there first and control the area.
Kyle picked up the letter-sized envelope he’d found in Arrigo’s Rome office. It had been with the Dane’s other belongings in the man’s vehicle, and Kyle had no way of knowing if his opponent had read the information or passed the series of coded numbers on to anyone.
Sebastian moaned softly as he rolled onto his side, blinking. Tensing, he looked up, eyes wide as he took a shuddering breath. “Kyle?”
“It’s all right. You’re safe.” Kyle touched Sebastian’s hair lightly. He wanted to pull Sebastian into his arms until the trembling stopped, but he didn’t want to alarm him. “How are you feeling?”
Sebastian rubbed his eyes. “Like I was hit by a truck. And dragged a mile.”
“That’s normal. It’ll pass. You can take some painkillers. Sleep more.”
“Normal.” Sebastian laughed ruefully.
“It’s all relative.”
“Where are they? Are they…?”
“You don’t have to worry about them.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what that means. They’re dead.”
Sebastian rolled onto his back. After a few moments of silence, he looked down at himself. Kyle had stripped off his jeans and left Sebastian in his underwear. “How did I get here? How did you get loose?”
Kyle held up his swollen left hand. “Dislocated my thumb.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “How the hell do you dislocate your own thumb?”
“Years of practice.”
“Don’t you need to see a doctor?”
“Popped it back in myself.” He flexed his fingers gingerly. “It’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“Just like that? Fixed overnight?”
“All relative.” Kyle shrugged.
“You did that while you were sitting there looking bored? I thought you were about to take a nap. I thought…” He flushed. “Never mind.”
Kyle found himself caressing Sebastian’s cheek with his knuckles. “If they thought I cared, it would’ve been worse.”
Sebastian met his gaze. “So you do? Care?”
When they’d dragged Sebastian in, weak but alive, the relief and joy Kyle experienced was extraordinary. Watching them torture Sebastian had been an agony he never knew existed, and the satisfaction in spilling their blood was great. “Sebastian…” His heart beat faster, he cupped Sebastian’s face. “I—”
A shrill ring pierced the air, and they both jumped. Kyle reached for his duffel, which he’d recovered intact f
rom the Dane’s vehicle. It was his private, untraceable phone. Unknown caller. He picked up but said nothing.
“Kyle?” Marie’s voice, pitched higher than usual, rang in his ear.
“Yes, I’m alive. Sorry to disappoint you, chéri.”
“Shut up and listen. I need your help, and I bet you need mine. Where are you?”
Kyle laughed hollowly. “So you can send another team? Afraid not.”
She huffed. “Mr. Grant, I’m on your side. Listen to me.”
“Not this time. Au revoir.” He hung up.
“What’s going on?” Sebastian asked quietly.
“Doesn’t matter. Just rest.”
“It matters to me.” Sebastian tried to push himself up with his arm, but it wavered before he flopped back down. He clenched his teeth, clearly frustrated. “I thought tasers only affected people for a few minutes.”
“You’ll feel better in a couple more hours. That wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill taser gun.”
“Who were those men? Tell me what’s happening.”
Kyle debated for a moment before acquiescing. “They were sent by the Association. Which means I’m on my own. I can’t trust any of them.” Marie’s betrayal hurt more than it should have, and his jaw clenched.
Sebastian rested his palm on Kyle’s denim-clad thigh. “You’re not alone.”
Enough of this. Make it a clean break. Kyle removed Sebastian’s hand. “I reached my contact, the one who arranges new identities. I’m taking you to him first thing tomorrow. He’s arranging transport now.”
“What? I’m not going anywhere.” Sebastian heaved himself up to a sitting position.
“There’s no other option. Forget the hit your father put on you—you’ve got the Association after you now. They wanted you dead, but now it’s worse. If they think you have information, they will pursue every avenue available. Baseball caps and keeping your head down won’t put them off.”
“But my father’s deal is supposed to happen tomorrow night, right?”
“Yes, as far as we know.”
The Chimera Affair: Gay Romance Page 12
